Andhra, Telengana top ease of doing business chart

The bifurcated states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana are the new joint top-ranked states this year in terms of ease of doing business, says a report released on Monday.

Prepared by the Centre in collaboration with the World Bank, the "Assessment of State Implementation of Business Reforms, 2016", is based on a ranking by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion. The report tracks the level of implementation of norms by states making it easier to do business there.

"This is the second year of the report and the states have really been competing in implementing reforms," Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said releasing the report here.

"Telangana was at 13 last year, Haryana (at 6 this year) was ranked 14 and Uttarakhand was at 23 (at 9 this year)," she said to illustrate the competition among states.

While Gujarat, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh figure in the top five, Haryana, Jharkhand,Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Maharashtra are the other states among the top 10 this year.

"While last year only seven states implemented more than 50 per cent of the reforms in question back then, this time 18 states have implemented more than that level among the 340 reform items listed," Sitharaman said.

"Last year not a single state had implemented 75 per cent of the reforms listed, while this year more than 15 states have done so," she added.

At least 32 state and UT governments have submitted evidence of implementation of 7,124 reforms, a Union Commerce Ministry release here said.

World Bank Country Director Junaid Ahmad said the latest ranking showed that the low-income states have outperformed the others.

"The important lesson of this report is how doing business is getting decentralised and unleashing the economic might of India," Ahmad said, adding that "Brazil and Russia are the other two big countries that are also moving at a sub-national level like India".

The parameters by which the states have been ranked are single-window system for approvals, tax reforms, construction permits, environment and labour reforms, inspection reforms and paper-less courts.

Also released on Monday is a new index by the NITI Aayog, which looks at implementation of reforms in making agricultural marketing easier in various states. The index shows Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan top the rankings.

Commenting on the latest report, the Government of Odisha said the state is now recognised as a "leader" in terms of implementation of business reforms.

"Odisha has again shown the way to other states with an overall increase of score by over 40 per cent points to 92.73 per cent," a state government release said in Bhubaneshwar.

"Over the past year, the state has undertaken a number of business reforms, key among these being the Central Inspection Framework for industries and integration of business-related services with the eBiz online platform," it added.

--IANS

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